Introduction to the Compleat Angler eBook

As to salmon, Walton scarcely speaks a true word about
their habits, except by accident. Concerning
pike, he quotes the theory that they are bred by pickerel
weed, only as what ‘some think.’
In describing the use of frogs as bait, he makes the
famous, or infamous, remark, ’Use him as though
you loved him . . . that he may live the longer.’
A bait-fisher may be a good man, as Izaak
was, but it is easier for a camel to pass through
the eye of a needle. As coarse fish are usually
caught only with bait, I shall not follow Izaak on
to this unholy and unfamiliar ground, wherein, none
the less, grow flowers of Walton’s fancy, and
the songs of the old poets are heard. The Practical
Angler, indeed, is a book to be marked with flowers,
marsh marigolds and fritillaries, and petals of the
yellow iris, for the whole provokes us to content,
and whispers that word of the apostle, ‘Study
to be quiet.’

FISHING THEN AND NOW

Since Maui, the Maori hero, invented barbs for hooks,
angling has been essentially one and the same thing.
South Sea islanders spin for fish with a mother-of-pearl
lure which is also a hook, and answers to our spoon.
We have hooks of stone, and hooks of bone; and a bronze
hook, found in Ireland, has the familiar Limerick
bend. What Homer meant by making anglers throw
‘the horn of an ox of the stall’ into the
sea, we can only guess; perhaps a horn minnow is meant,
or a little sheath of horn to protect the line.
Dead bait, live bait, and imitations of bait have
all been employed, and AElian mentions artificial Mayflies
used, with a very short line, by the Illyrians.

But, while the same in essence, angling has been improved
by human ingenuity. The Waltonian angler, and
still more his English predecessors, dealt much in
the home-made. The Treatise of the fifteenth
century bids you make your ‘Rodde’ of a
fair staff even of a six foot long or more, as ye
list, of hazel, willow, or ‘aspe’ (ash?),
and ’beke hym in an ovyn when ye bake, and let
him cool and dry a four weeks or more.’
The pith is taken out of him with a hot iron, and
a yard of white hazel is similarly treated, also a
fair shoot of blackthorn or crabtree for a top.
The butt is bound with hoops of iron, the top is
accommodated with a noose, a hair line is looped in
the noose, and the angler is equipped. Splicing
is not used, but the joints have holes to receive
each other, and with this instrument ’ye may
walk, and there is no man shall wit whereabout ye
go.’ Recipes are given for colouring and
plaiting hair lines, and directions for forging hooks.
’The smallest quarell needles’ are used
for the tiniest hooks.